Diamante and Haiku

There are more than a hundred different poetry forms. Today I want to introduce you to diamante and haiku.

Diamante

The diamante poetry form is a relative newcomer. It was invented in 1969 by an American poet and educator named Iris McClellan Tiedt. The rules for this form are very straightforward. There are seven lines. The first and last lines have a single noun. The second and sixth lines have two adjectives. The third and fifth lines contain three verbs. The middle-or fourth line is made up of four nouns. When centered on the page this poetry form is diamond-shaped. That’s where it gets its name. Diamante is Italian for diamond.

When writing a diamante poem, the first and last words can be synonyms or antonyms. For example:

Snow

powdery, white

Falling, swirling, drifting

Flakes, crystals, blizzard, blanket

Freezing, thawing, melting

Mushy, brown

Slush

See how it makes a diamond on the page? 

Haiku

Haiku in its present form was popularized in seventeenth century Japan. Haiku always has three lines. The first line consists of five syllables. Line two has seven syllables. The third and final line has five syllables. Traditionally haiku are about a single moment in time, or about nature. Here is one written by Haiku master Basho, from the seventeenth century:

An old silent pond . . .

A frog jumps into the pond,

splash! Silence again.

Here is a haiku I wrote about a birthday:

Slender candle flames

Dance and sway atop a cake

Wax drips on frosting

Both the diamante and haiku forms have rigid structure in terms of number of lines, and in the case of haiku, syllables per line. But notice, that neither of them rhyme.

So pick up your pen or fire up your keyboard and try your hand at a diamante or haiku today!